Strawberries
by fakeditfromthewordgo
Summary: '"Strawberries," she said simply, "that's what I'm looking for, please." Drabble, AU.


The first time they met, it was a quiet, sunny morning. The door chimed as she pushed past it, into the local grocery store. Her footsteps were cautious, but he still looked up when she entered. The corners of her lips quirked up in a slight smile as they surveyed one another, though both hoped the other didn't notice.

"Hi," she said eventually, stepping towards the counter the teenage boy stood behind.

"Hey," he replied with an easy smile, his voice low and smoky, and as she came to stop right in front of him, she couldn't help but notice the vibrance of his blue eyes. It was hard to miss, especially against the mahogany hair that fell over them, just messy enough to make her want to flatten it. Those eyes, which traced the wires looping around her ears leading to her nostrils, and down the arm which was pulling a steel cart holding an oxygen tank. When he looked up again, she raised an eyebrow, and that was the only comment made on it.

"Strawberries," she said simply, after the awkward silence, "that's what I'm looking for, please."

He nodded, turning to the rows of fruit and vegetables behind him. As he packed the red fruits in a plastic container, he couldn't help but cut a glance back at the girl. She was small and slender, with a pixie-cut that accentuated her cheekbones, and he couldn't stop staring at her.

Which she totally called him out on when he spun back around to face her. "Is there a reason why you're staring at me like that?" Her tone wasn't cold, but it wasn't exactly heated with the fires of hell, either.

"I," he announced, "have long since stopped denying myself the pleasure of looking at beautiful things."

There was a moment's silence, before she pulled out her purse, and pressed a crisp five dollar note onto the counter with one hand, retrieving her strawberries with the other.

"Keep the change," was all she called back as the door breezed shut behind her.

* * *

The second time, it was busy. Too busy for a girl with an oxygen cart.

When she reached him this time, it was with a queue behind her, and it was with less breath than entirely comfortable for a human being that she enquired as to the availability of strawberries.

Shooting her a half-worried, half-curious look, he nodded, and packaged them up swiftly, making sure they were the nicest-looking ones. "Are you okay?"

She shot him a tired smile. "I'm okay."

For a moment, they just looked at each other, and it was like they'd flipped a switch on the rest of the world, completely tuned it out. Then the girl felt someone's bag brushing her arm, and, jumping slightly, she nodded at the blue-eyed boy, and all but ran from the shop, her cart quiet behind her.

* * *

"We seem to be meeting a lot," the boy said, the third time they happened to come into acquaintance, "for two people that don't even know each other's name."

"Maybe," she replied, leaning into the counter a little, "you should invest in a name-tag, then."

He laughed as he scooped the strawberries into their container. "Easier said than done when you're a seventeen year-old boy working in a small grocery shop."

"You sound bitter." Her tone was observational, and the boy's smile in return was dry.

"Oh, I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up," he said, pressing the package into her hand.

* * *

It was a few weeks before she came back, and he started to worry. It was stupid to be thinking about her so much, he knew that. But once he'd started, he found it was very, very hard to stop. This time, when the door chimed, and it was her light footsteps that accompanied the sound, his heart leapt. He tried to ignore it, looking up with a cool smile.

If she'd been wondering about him as he had her, she wasn't showing it: her walk was the normal, slow speed as ever, her face only vaguely friendly in return to his big smile. What he didn't notice, however, was the way her fingers were tight around her steel cart, and how hard she was trying to keep her face passive, when really she wanted to return his blinding grin with an embarrassingly cheesy one of her own.

Without a word, he placed the pre-packaged strawberries before her.

"How did you know I was coming today?"

He shrugged. "This isn't the first time I've done them in advance."

She cocked her head to the side, trying to figure him out. "I'm not beautiful."

Caught by surprise, he laughed. "Yeah, you are. Totally Natalie Portman in _V for Vendetta_."

Her gaze went to the floor for a moment, and when she looked back up, her eyes were soft. "I guess I should watch that some time, then."

"I happen to own it, if you get really desperate," he tried, and she laughed lightly.

"Goodbye, Augustus," she said, and his fingers automatically went to fiddle with the name tag pinned to his right breast, one that he was sure read 'Gus'.

* * *

"It's not fair," Augustus remarked, when she finally decided to return. The store was deserted besides the two of them, so he had no qualms in chatting with her.

She quirked an eyebrow. "What isn't?"

"You know more about me than I know about you. That," he fixed her with a hard stare, "is not how this works."

"And what exactly," she said, "is this?"

There was a pause as both of them considered exactly what 'this' was. Both of them were scared, because what if it meant more to them than the other? What if they slipped up, and admitted that these meetings made them happier than a lot of things?

"I don't know," he answered finally.

* * *

From then on, every time she came in, she made a point of telling him something about her in return for a fact of his own. The sixth time she came in, it was that strawberries were her favourite fruit, and no matter how he argued that he already knew that, she wouldn't relent and tell him anything else. So he replied that his own was pineapple. Next came her favourite colour (blue, his red), her birthday, and all other sorts of mundane facts. He was itching to ask her name, or about the nubbins in her nose - why did she need them? Who was she? She, on the other hand, was terrified of letting herself be defined, and so deflected in every way she could.

It was a tiring game to play, but not one either of them wanted to end any time soon.

* * *

"Hang on," Augustus said, cutting her off before she could reel off another fact. She looked up in surprise, pulling a face at him. "I'm going first today."

"Okay," she said, looking suspicious.

"Okay," he replied, and she couldn't help but giggle a little. He took a deep breath, and stepped out from the counter.

She looked him up and down; he was long and muscular, lithe and… gorgeous. Blushing a little, she pushed herself to sound cool as she said, "that was anticlimactic."

But he wasn't done, and when he pulled up his trouser leg, she gasped. It was quiet, but audible, and Augustus looked up with a humourless smile.

"Osteosarcoma," he said in way in explanation, "it's a type of-"

"Cancer," she finished, a little breathlessly. "I know." Of course she knew. Cancer was more her than she was herself; she knew the different variations better than she knew herself. His wooden leg shouldn't have been a surprise to her, with all the end results of people in remission she'd witnessed, but it was the fact that, of all people, it was Augustus, the grocery store guy that had become her stolen piece of normal.

"Um," she said, after he'd taken his place back behind the counter. "Do you have any paper? And a pen?"

Confused, he rummaged around in a drawer below the cash register before he pulled out the requested items. She took them from him, and scribbled on the paper for a second, before folding it, and placing it carefully on the counter.

Smiling, she turned, and left before Augustus knew what was happening.

"Wait!" he called, but it was too late. He sighed, taking the paper and unfolding it. Then he smiled. A big, stupid, smile. Kind of like the one she'd given him before she left, actually.

_Hazel Grace Lancaster, _she'd written next to her number, _thyroids with mets in my lungs. Also suffering from kind of wanting to hang out with you. Strawberries optional._


End file.
